Americans United - Hemant Mehtahttp://www.au.org/tags/hemant-mehta
enDon’t Bless This Mess: Religious Right Claim Of Persecution In Tenn. Public School Doesn’t Check Outhttp://www.au.org/blogs/wall-of-separation/don-t-bless-this-mess-religious-right-claim-of-persecution-in-tenn-public
<a href="/about/people/simon-brown">Simon Brown</a><div class="field field-name-field-blog-type field-type-taxonomy-term-reference field-label-hidden"><div class="field-items"><div class="field-item even"><a href="/blogs/wall-of-separation">Wall of Separation</a></div></div></div><div class="field field-name-field-callout field-type-text-long field-label-hidden"><div class="field-items"><div class="field-item even">The Religious Right loves to play the victim, and these groups jump on any opportunity to make it seem like fundamentalist Christians are being oppressed.</div></div></div><div class="field field-name-body field-type-text-with-summary field-label-hidden"><div class="prose"><p>As usual, the Religious Right’s outrage over a so-called “attack” on faith in a public school isn’t quite what it seems.</p><p>The media is <a href="http://www.tennessean.com/story/news/local/2014/08/20/tennessee-teen-in-trouble-for-saying-bless-you-after-sneeze/14366865/">swarming</a> this week around <a href="http://i.imgur.com/ea4NeRS.png">a story</a> told by Kendra Turner, a senior at Dyer County High School in Newbern, Tenn. She first broadcast the story on social media, claiming that she was “sent to the office” because one of her teachers didn’t want her saying “God bless you” in class after another student sneezed. In a Facebook post, Turner said her teacher told her, “We do not do Godly speak in my class.”</p><p>In later media interviews, Turner<a href="http://thatbaldchick.com/2014/08/19/in-school-suspension-for-saying-bless-you/"> expanded quite a bit </a>on her story. She said she argued with the teacher, who has been identified by her last name of Kindle. Supposedly, Kindle told Turner that she has no constitutional right to discuss God in her classroom. Turner said she was then dismissed from the class, sent to the principal’s office and given an in-school suspension for the remainder of that class period. She said after she left the room, all of her classmates stood up to defend her and that other teachers had to be called in to put down a mini-rebellion of sorts.</p><p><a href="http://www.wmcactionnews5.com/story/26320134/dyer-county-student-reportedly-suspended-after-saying-bless-you?autostart=true">Turner told WMC Action News 5</a>, the NBC affiliate in Memphis, that she was punished because she stood up for her own free speech.</p><p>“It’s all right to defend God and it’s our constitutional right because we have a freedom of religion and freedom of speech,” she told the news station.</p><p>Students also sent WMC Action News a photo of what was said to be the teacher’s white board, which has a list of banned phrases – including “bless you.”</p><p>The Religious Right launched quickly into its usual hyperbolic, reactionary response, jumping to the conclusion that Turner’s version of the story must be the whole truth. Fox News columnist Todd Starnes, who has <a href="https://au.org/blogs/wall-of-separation/suspicious-stories-created-controversies-complicate-religion-in-public">a history</a> of running with these one-sided Religious Right scare stories, <a href="http://www.foxnews.com/opinion/2014/08/20/student-punished-for-saying-bless/">wrote</a> that, “For whatever reason, the school will not explain why the teacher has an issue with the words ‘bless you.’ This one is a head-scratcher, folks. But one thing is clear – religious intolerance is nothing to sneeze at.”</p><p>In reality, the school has at least partly shared its side of the story. Hemant Mehta, who runs the “Friendly Atheist” blog, decided to <a href="http://www.patheos.com/blogs/friendlyatheist/2014/08/19/did-a-high-school-student-really-get-suspended-for-responding-to-a-sneeze-with-bless-you/#ixzz3B3tp7Dwx">dig a little bit</a>. He spoke with Dyer County High School Principal Peggy Dodds, who told him Turner was not suspended for saying “bless you” and she has not been subjected to any type of in-school punishment. In fact, Turner wasn’t even told to leave the class – she walked out on her own.</p><p>Turner was, however, told not to disrupt class before she left, Dodds said. If she cried out “Bless you” after a fellow student sneezed, Kindle might have interpreted that as a disruption, just as she would have had Turned yelled out “Gesundheit,” Hey!” or anything else.</p><p>The WMC Action News report added that Kindle said Turner was both disruptive and aggressive.</p><p>So there you have it. While portions of the story remain unverified, it seems the news reports claiming Turner was kicked out of class and suspended are not accurate.</p><p>Now, it is worth noting that Kindle may have opened herself up to criticism with a posted list of banned words. Perhaps she was listing words that students commonly yell out in class. But rather than picking and choosing what students can or can’t say, she should simply have a policy that prohibits disruptive outbursts of any kind in class. That way no one can claim discrimination. (By the way, whatever happened to raising your hand if you have something to say in class?)</p><p>Unbiased media outlets really need to take note of Mehta’s work. Rather than running with a report based mostly off of a kid’s social media post, they have an obligation to get both sides of the story. In this case, many news outlets were far too easily satisfied when the school either declined to comment or didn’t immediately respond.</p><p>Ultimately it’s not hard to figure out why these types of phony or exaggerated horror stories keep circulating. The Religious Right <a href="https://au.org/church-state/june-2014-church-state/people-events/afa-says-christians-can-no-longer-work-in-certain">loves to play the victim</a>, and these groups jump on any opportunity to make it seem like fundamentalist Christians are being oppressed.</p><p>Of course this false “victimization” is just a cover for the fact that most of the time it’s the Religious Right that is discriminating against others – not the other way around.</p></div></div><div class="tags clearfix"><div class="field-label">Issues:&nbsp;</div><div class="field-items"><span class="field-item"><a href="/issues/school-prayer">School Prayer</a></span></div></div><div class="tags clearfix"><div class="field-label">Tags:&nbsp;</div><div class="field-items"><span class="field-item"><a href="/tags/kendra-turner">Kendra Turner</a></span>, <span class="field-item"><a href="/tags/god-bless-you">God Bless You</a></span>, <span class="field-item"><a href="/tags/dyer-county-high-school">Dyer County High School</a></span>, <span class="field-item"><a href="/tags/friendly-atheist">Friendly Atheist</a></span>, <span class="field-item"><a href="/tags/todd-starnes">Todd Starnes</a></span>, <span class="field-item"><a href="/tags/hemant-mehta">Hemant Mehta</a></span>, <span class="field-item"><a href="/tags/religious-right-0">Religious Right</a></span></div></div><div class="tags clearfix"><div class="field-label">Location:&nbsp;</div><div class="field-items"><span class="field-item"><a href="/our-work/grassroots/tennessee">Tennessee</a></span></div></div>Fri, 22 Aug 2014 16:38:55 +0000Simon Brown10391 at http://www.au.orghttp://www.au.org/blogs/wall-of-separation/don-t-bless-this-mess-religious-right-claim-of-persecution-in-tenn-public#commentsRhode Island Banner Battle: Student Jessica Ahlquist Stands Up For The Constitution http://www.au.org/blogs/wall-of-separation/rhode-island-banner-battle-student-jessica-ahlquist-stands-up-for-the
<a href="/about/people/rob-boston">Rob Boston</a><div class="field field-name-field-blog-type field-type-taxonomy-term-reference field-label-hidden"><div class="field-items"><div class="field-item even"><a href="/blogs/wall-of-separation">Wall of Separation</a></div></div></div><div class="field field-name-field-callout field-type-text-long field-label-hidden"><div class="field-items"><div class="field-item even">Disputes over religion in public schools bring out the worst in some people.</div></div></div><div class="field field-name-body field-type-text-with-summary field-label-hidden"><div class="prose"><p>In 1963, the U.S. Supreme Court handed down a famous decision in a school prayer case called <a href="http://caselaw.lp.findlaw.com/scripts/getcase.pl?court=us&amp;vol=374&amp;invol=203"><em>Abington School District v. Schempp</em></a>. The justices, with only one dissenter, ruled school-sponsored and coercive programs of prayer and Bible reading in public schools unconstitutional.</p>
<p>That same year for some reason, students at a high school in Cranston, R.I., decided to create an 8-foot-tall banner containing an official school prayer and hang it in the school auditorium.</p>
<p>Maybe it was an act of defiance against the court. Maybe the students and administrators weren’t even thinking about what the court said. In any case, the prayer banner has remained on the wall for nearly 50 years.</p>
<p>And now a brave young woman is working to get it removed. Jessica Ahlquist, a 16-year-old junior at Cranston High School West, knew as soon as she entered the school as a freshman that the prayer didn’t belong there.</p>
<p>Ahlquist was at first reluctant to take on the matter, but eventually she contacted the Rhode Island branch of the American Civil Liberties Union, which filed suit on her behalf. School officials dug in, calling the prayer part of the school’s history and tradition.</p>
<p>They also lined up some outside help. A conservative Catholic-oriented legal group called the Becket Fund is representing the school. A federal judge is expected to rule tomorrow on a request for a preliminary injunction.</p>
<p>“It’s a cutting-edge case that raises some important issues,” Joseph V. Cavanagh Jr., one of the lawyers representing the school, told the <em>Providence Journal</em>.</p>
<p>Actually, it’s not. There’s nothing “cutting edge” about what the school is doing here. School officials are just violating the First Amendment and have been for five decades. As has been noted, the Supreme Court struck down school-sponsored religion in the <em>Schempp</em> case from 1963 (and in <a href="http://www.law.cornell.edu/supct/html/historics/USSC_CR_0370_0421_ZS.html"><em>Engel v. Vitale</em></a>, a case handed down a year earlier).</p>
<p>The prayer in question begins with a plea to “Our Heavenly Father” and concludes with the word, “Amen.” It is even headlined “School Prayer”! (Hemant Mehta, a blogger known as the “Friendly Atheist,” has a picture of the banner <a href="http://www.patheos.com/blogs/friendlyatheist/2010/12/01/cranston-high-school-west-fights-to-keep-prayer-banner-up/">here</a>.) It’s an obvious attempt by the school to promote religion.</p>
<p>The school officials’ refusal to correct this problem is bad enough. What’s worse about cases like this is the reaction they spark from some members of the public. As the <em>Journal</em> noted, since Ahlquist filed the suit, “[S]tudents and adults have called her a ‘stupid atheist,’ an ACLU tool, a witch and a ‘media whore.’ They’ve also threatened her through e-mails or at school, she says. A former classmate told her that, if she knew what he really thought of her, she would kill herself, she says.”</p>
<p>But this gutsy young woman is not backing down. She has her <a href="http://jessicaahlquist.com/">own blog</a>, tweets about the case and has created a <a href="https://www.facebook.com/groups/179298715436387/">Facebook page</a> to bring attention to the issue. I admire her moxie!</p>
<p>The law is squarely on Ahlquist’s side. Public schools have no business promoting religion or encouraging students to pray or not pray. Such decisions belong in the private realm, at home and at houses of worship.</p>
<p>Let’s hope the federal court agrees tomorrow.</p>
<p>P.S. The founder of Rhode Island, Roger Williams, was a strong advocate of church-state separation who abhorred any mixing of the two. Old Roger must be turning over in his grave!</p>
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</div></div><div class="tags clearfix"><div class="field-label">Issues:&nbsp;</div><div class="field-items"><span class="field-item"><a href="/issues/religion-public-schools-and-universities">Religion in Public Schools and Universities</a></span>, <span class="field-item"><a href="/issues/school-prayer">School Prayer</a></span></div></div><div class="tags clearfix"><div class="field-label">Tags:&nbsp;</div><div class="field-items"><span class="field-item"><a href="/tags/becket-fund">Becket Fund</a></span>, <span class="field-item"><a href="/tags/cranston-high-school-west">Cranston High School West</a></span>, <span class="field-item"><a href="/tags/hemant-mehta">Hemant Mehta</a></span>, <span class="field-item"><a href="/tags/jessica-ahlquist">Jessica Ahlquist</a></span>, <span class="field-item"><a href="/tags/joseph-v-cavanagh-jr">Joseph V. Cavanagh Jr.</a></span>, <span class="field-item"><a href="/tags/rhode-island">Rhode Island</a></span>, <span class="field-item"><a href="/tags/roger-williams">Roger Williams</a></span></div></div>Wed, 12 Oct 2011 15:06:20 +0000Rob Boston6162 at http://www.au.orghttp://www.au.org/blogs/wall-of-separation/rhode-island-banner-battle-student-jessica-ahlquist-stands-up-for-the#comments